C.A. Garcelon from Gettysburg, 1863

Charles A. Garcelon of Lewiston, who was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in Co. I of the 16th Maine Infantry on Aug. 16, 1862, wrote to his aunt, Jane A. Hitchcock Waldron in Lewiston, to tell her that he and her husband, Capt. William H. Waldron, were safe following the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863.

Garcelon wrote that his uncle had suffered a "bullet wound in his neck" but that it was not serious. Both men had been held prisoner from July 1-4, taken when the Confederates pushed Union forces out of the town.

Garcelon wrote that the loss of the town was caused by the "disgraceful conduct of the 11th Corps." He added that Union men "made a stand on the hill back of the town."

"I trust we may be successful it seems as though this wicked war has gone far enough to stop both sides are tied of it, the common solider I mean."

Major Abner Small wrote that William Waldron suffered "a ghastly wound in his neck" but refused to leave the front lines. The wound ended Waldron's military career. He was discharged for disability on Sept. 27, 1863 and died in February 1881.